Comments

I really enjoyed this issue. It was quite entertaining to read about all the KDE developments and the friendly banter that goes back and forth between the developers. Thanks for keeping KDE Traffic alive!

I think its too early to tell... Remember Novell is the same company that brought us WordPerfect Office, and Unixware... I think we need to wait 2 years to see the body count. Then we can speculate their strategy.

I don't see this as either Ximian or SuSE winning. Clearly, what will happen is that they will be integrated. This integration could be either good or bad for KDE.

SuSE could become a GNOME/Ximian distro that also offers the stock KDE. This would not be good because they would no longer be promoting KDE -- just make the RPMs of whatever we release and put it in the distro. OTOH, I guess that we wish that that was what RedHat did. :-D

Or, they could integrate some of the Ximian stuff into KDE (Evolution and OO).

But, we shouldn't wait around to see what happens. With what is happening, I think that we need to take steps to promote KDE. This probably means that an RPM based distro is needed. This should be a basically stock distro -- all enhancements to Linux should be KDE based in such a distro.

This should be quite easy to do since the RedHat installer is freely available and if we want a stock Linux distro all that is needed is a packaged distro based mostly on Linux From Scratch and/or Fedora RPMs.

I emphasize that KDE needs its own distro because KDE includes the enhancements which various distros have developed. So, KDE will always be in conflict with distros that have their own (possibly proprietary) enhancements to Linux because KDE also includes these.

Commercial support would help -- would the Kompany be interested? But, we could probably just have the ISO on line and get one of the CD sellers to distribute it.

We also need to address larger software issues rather than just make better widgets.

1. Will we soon have something that is interoperable with Evolution and M$?

2. Have we considered applying for a Flash license and directly incorporating Flash support into Konqueror (with a KPart) rather than using a plug-in?

There is already some OSS code base for this. Search on: "SWF" at SourceForge.

5. GNOME integration is needed. But this can be one way. If you install a GNOME application in a KDE based Linux system, it should be added to the menu, icon and MIME system without any human intervention. If this isn't currently possible then something like: KAppFinder (a wizard) is needed.

6. Our native solutions need to be able to play streaming Audio/Video from web sites.

Yes I tried the KDE-3.2Beta1 and the VFS Menu works. A link and KDE finds the GNOME icons.

However, there was no file association for Gnumeric. There is a MIME type (the one that comes with KAppFinder) but no association.

HOWEVER! That "vanity" background in KFM is very very unusable.

Perhaps it only gives you a sever headache in 2 minutes if you have astigmatism (I do :-)).

I guess that this is just part of this syndrome that developers don't seem to consider that their favorite eye candy is detrimental to usability.

And there is yet another icon on the Konqueror toolbar: FSViewPart. Was this put there because the authors of the application thought it was a real cool application? or did some one consider usability?

This bootable CD distro is too specialized to be considered a KDE distro. We need something to replace RedHat.

1. Evolution/M$ --> Kontakt/Kolab

Yes as soon as we ship 1.0 this should do it.

>5. GNOME Apps --> XDG menus (mime system is in the making AFAIK)

Yes the menues work in KDE-3.2 -- well at least as well as the KDE ones. But, AND is AND and the MIME types and file associations need to work as well.

> 6. Audio/Video --> Doesn't Kaffeine or KPlayer support this?

It is the: "Embeded Media Player" that needs a little work. I can download and play a QuickTime movie trailer with Kaboodle and the Xine library (x86 only as you still need the actual Windows DLLs). Three cheers for the Xine people. However, they won't play in the "Embeded Media Player". The plugin (or KPart) does load but nothing happens. Just a small detail that needs to be finished.

>>>It is the: "Embeded Media Player" that needs a little work. I can download and play a QuickTime movie trailer with Kaboodle and the Xine library (x86 only as you still need the actual Windows DLLs). Three cheers for the Xine people. However, they won't play in the "Embeded Media Player". The plugin (or KPart) does load but nothing happens. Just a small detail that needs to be finished.<<<

kmplayer works reasonably well embedded in konqueror, and the mplayer project apparently have managed to decode QuickTime Sorenson3 natively (no windows dll needed).

Its nice to see some attention being paid to the toolbar situation. IMHO, its one of the principle reasons GNOME apps still look more polished than KDE apps. First the context menus, now this. Its just great.

OT: I'm a little depressed about the whole Novell thing. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I don't want KDE to become another example of superior technology being killed off by business interests.

IMHO SuSE's influence on KDE isn't as big as same people think. The number of KDE developers working for SuSE is really tiny compared to the total amount of KDE developers. So if SuSE really decides to pull their(!) plug on KDE I don't think that you would notice it much (development speed wise).

Using a current CVS version of KDE I like the new composer toolbar.
But I still see the crypto-module selector and as a user of a permanent internet connection there is my standard change: I replace "save into outbox" with "save as draft".

Both KDE and GNOME are in their infancy in terms of usage. Only time to tell if one will prevail over the other, or if something else will replace both of them (most likely). Neither one is going to disappear within five years though, probably.

Small babysteps that are towards GNOME, and alrger leaps, such as 1 million new chinese desktops powered by GNOME will eventually lead to a foothold in the Linux Desktop as strong as Microsoft's in the OS market.

These small steps are what count the most, exactly because both projects are in their infancy. If KDE had 500 million desktops and GNOME had 550 million, it would hardly make a big differnece, however now it does.

KDE is partly to blame, KD Eis not aggressive about getting corporate support, donations etc. They expect companies will flock to them, not vice versa and when you are a pretty new project, it won't happen that way.

GNOME has always been very encouraging of corporate participation and donations, much more than KDE, they have been much more assertive on these issues and it shows. GNOME has been working hard to become busienss ready and also governement ready by making their desktop much more usable and ACCESSIBLE.

Their license DEFINITELY helps, it is a large part of why they are being supported by more companies than KDE is. KDE really needs to identify with a large company, to build name recognition and trust.

The same is true in Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, India and most other contries with developing open source policies.

Commercial support is nice, but in the long term, Linux tends to see the better product winning out, which admittedly is surprising in such a capitalist culture, but there it is.

Honestly, I expect SuSE to keep on using KDE as their primary desktop environment, despite the Novell acquisition. Moreover, SuSE are finally becoming a challenger to RH in north america, where there was no one else before. That is a good thing. With Novell's corporate tools and HP and Gateway's distribution with new machines, the future is looking very bright for SuSE and the KDE. Add onto that the fact that RH has just abdicated the desktop market, and that Sun are still making a hash of their Gnome-based desktop and I am not so worried about corporate-driven Gnome dominance anymore.

KDE 3.2 should be more than ample for most desktops, achieving parity with Windows and OSX in terms of functionality, intuitiveness and ease of use, which is a great thing. Add to that the fact that Konqy is now very good, and that with Safari, we really do have a good alternative to IE now with a large installed base, and I am hopeful for open standards and the future of the web, too, especially with MS now not shipping IE 7 until 2006, with a majority of Windows users only having access to it by 2009.

Sufficed to say, I'm excited and eager to see what happens when we have Kernel 2.6 and 3.0, with Reiser4 and other additions. I'm also eager to see what happens for QT4 and KDE 4, where we get a chance to really push the boat out and add features beyond achieving parity with existing offerings! If all MS have for Longhorn are pretty window effects, WinFS meta-data searching, DRM and "better" security, then we stand on the threshold of an incredible change in the computing industry. We have 6 years, effectively, to develop new and compelling features. 6 years to beat Microsoft's crappy new features and establish new ways of thinking, working and using computers!

And I'll stop now, because I really am excited and impatient to see what the future holds.

"KDE is partly to blame, KD Eis not aggressive about getting corporate support, donations etc. They expect companies will flock to them, not vice versa and when you are a pretty new project, it won't happen that way.

GNOME has always been very encouraging of corporate participation and donations, much more than KDE, they have been much more assertive on these issues and it shows. GNOME has been working hard to become busienss ready and also governement ready by making their desktop much more usable and ACCESSIBLE."

How does corporate partnerships have ANYTHING to do with usability? And who said a word about "flocking"? Please, learn the language of logic before you try to partake in an adult conversation.

"How does corporate partnerships have ANYTHING to do with usability? "

Usability is very important for businesses because it = increased productivity. The business doesen't care if you can customize your panel and look and feel well, as long as the unit runs the applications they need that is all they care about. Everything else is convenience, and often slows down productiviyu. Not because the users can't ignore the extra features, but because they like them, are curious about them, and will spend time fiddling with them sometimes.

Anyway, that isn't really usability, reducing options is not always a good thing to do to increase usability, because after a time you have a very usable product that isn't very useful. Usabiltiy means having features properly organized, with intuitive use and options that are useful.

"And who said a word about "flocking"? Please, learn the language of logic before you try to partake in an adult conversation."

Smartass its an opinion. From what I've seen GNOME has been more receptive to business requests, perhaps too receptive. KDE seems to expect that companies will come to them instead of KDE proposing a KDE solution to the company, sure its free but you still need marketing just like any other product.

My first post was aimed at responding to this

"Both KDE and GNOME are in their infancy in terms of usage. Only time to tell if one will prevail over the other, or if something else will replace both of them (most likely). Neither one is going to disappear within five years though, probably."

and the importance of early adoption. If you haad read my post you would know what it was about.

"flock" was used properly in the sentence and I was just emphasizing tha KDE is partly to blame for this and there are ways in which we could speed up KDE adoption and one way is to change the attitude I think many KDE people have.

"flock" simply means to quickly come to in large numbers, I don't know what you don't understand about this simple and commonly used word. It doesen't matter who used it, what matters is the whole sentence and topic not a single word. We don't all have the same vocabulary and we will use different words to illustrate different things. Obviously we are not drones and it doesen't matter if the word was used by someone else or not.

"Please, learn the language of logic before you try to partake in an adult conversation."

There is nothing illogical about using the word "flock" and if you want to counter something counter my ideas not my spelling or grammar. This is only the comments section, nothing to get worked up about, I couldn't care less about proper spelling and grammar here. Besides that, what you have said about "flock" about my illogical language use is not even correct. You can't just quote a word and expect people will know the entire idea of what you are saying.

Furthermore, how would you even know who here is an adult or not or who here is even a native english speaker. Think, I would like you to write proper Romanian.

And again, who really cares if I don't capitalize "I" would you correct me on that too? Who cares, the ideas are important not the presentation, not here. And again please explain how I used "flock" in the wrong way.

Ummm. pardon me for saying, but wasn't this whole conversation ABOUT usability and presentation? Your comments bored me to the point that I skimmed, but it's amusing all the same. I can tell you love listening to yourself (even with all the errors in logic in grammar) and I wouldn't want to get in the way of the echo.

usability is important for everyone. It isn't tied to businesses, it isn't tied to home users. It isn't tied to genius. It isn't tied to the mentally retarded. It benefits everyone.

KDE is a open source project that from the start, has been focused on providing use of use to the UNIX desktop. Usability has thus been a quite important goal in the minds of everyone involved with the KDE project. We aren't there yet in a prefectly usable solution, but we are slowly getting there.

I've found that the Up button on the left like that confuses new users - for web browsing it's all but useless anyway. In fact, the default layout of toolbars in many KDE apps seems a bit odd - KMail is a good example of odd priorities. I know it only takes a few minutes to get things how I like it, but for many users the defaults are all they see.

So, I don't understand how this is a new feature that needs to be added.

What I do agree with is the size of the text labels. There is no way to edit them and no way to use a font like: NimbusSanL-ReguCond (I mention that because it is a free font but Arial Narrow or Helvetica Narrow is what I really mean).

So, we need two new features:

Ability to edit the text labels for toolbar icons.

Ability to choose the font for the toolbar icons.

Note: if you have too many icons, you can remove them. Which icons the tool bars contain is fully configurable.